My baby turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, two days before the end of the school term. She is now a big school girl and her bag looks huge on her little shoulders. The middle of winter and we've a battle to get her to wear socks so sometimes it's easier to pick your battles, let them get cold toes, and discover for themselves why Mama knows best.

What do you do when you are asked by your child "can we please go to the toyshop?" for the hundredth time because they "really need a toy cat". You don't take them. Oh no. Instead you ask them to draw what the cat looks like and attempt to recreate it. This had the potential to end in tears(for me) and tantrums(for her), but it didn't. Miss R's cats always have particularly long ears, legs and tails and I wish I could find the drawing she did for me but I think the dog may have eaten it, or it has been hidden somewhere by little fingers. 

  

It likes lazing around,

To anyone not from New Zealand this is a wood pigeon or Kereru, nothing like the average sit on a statue pigeon. They like trees not buildings and are big, gorgeous gluttons that will quite happily sit on a plum tree and stuff themselves with ripe fruit until they are so full they look drunk.